Planting Combinations #5

Spring planting ideas from Chatsworth and my new favourite narcissus

I always find this time of year tricky - in my own garden there is still a lot of bare soil and not much colour, despite my intention each year to increase the number of miniature narcissus and other early bulbs in the back border. Sometimes you just need a kick of inspiration to make you look at different plants - and I got this when I visited Chatsworth earlier this week.

I’d been meaning to get up to Chatsworth for ages, having read about the work that has been done there recently by Dan Pearson and Tom Stuart-Smith. Dan has developed the area of the Trout Stream at the top of the garden, originally designed by Joseph Paxton, who diverted a local stream more than two miles away from its natural course to make it a feature in his picturesque vision of the garden. Dan’s semi-wild planting around the stream was still quite dormant, but the meandering pattern of the stream and its bubbling course through the garden was absolutely enchanting. Golden Caltha pallustris shone out from the water and bronze-leaved epimediums clothed the banks. I’d love to go back later to see the primulas in bright oranges and pinks that Dan has used to ‘create a heightened sense of nature’.

Caltha pallustris in the Trout Stream at Chatsworth

Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ on the stream banks

A detail of the planting later on in the season, with colourful primulas, in a photo from Dan Pearson

Tom Stuart-Smith and his team have worked on the Rockery, another of Paxton’s features, which was built in 1842 as a reminder of the 6th Duke’s visit to the Alps. Dramatic and bizarre, you feel like you have stepped into another world in this enclosed area, with rocks piled high above you. The planting in here had yet to emerge, but there were drifts of miniature narcissus among the rocks and leucojum by the pond.

The Rockery

Tom has also worked on the wider area here known as Arcadia, opening up previously overgrown thickets to make a series of glades, the biggest of which runs up from the maze. In March, this dramatic slope was quite sparse with just a few grasses left standing, and drifts of what I think was ‘Thalia’ narcissus wandering across. It looked like a sepia photograph. Later in the season it will erupt into flower, conceived as a perennial meadow and planted with great drifts of phlox, asters, agastache, molinias and pennisetums, dotted with summer-flowering euphorbias.

My photo of the 100 Steps and Maze, with the dormant perennial meadow either side

One of Tom Stuart-Smith’s photos of the same area later on in the season

The parts of the garden I drew most inspiration from for this time of year were the woodland glades between the Rockery and the Maze steps which had been planted with primulas, narcissus and Caucasian cress (Pachyphragma macrophylla) creating beautiful daubs of colour under the trees. Any colour at this time of year is precious and uplifting, so coming across these plantings was pure joy. Here is my interpretation of the schemes.